The Shoes of Shinigami
by Chauni
Summary: Duo remembers the ghosts of his past, including a special incident concerning his mentor, Solo.


Author: Chauni

Email: ChauniMaxwell@mechpilot.com

Website: www.geocities.com/asukalangley2nd/

Warnings: Yaoi, Soloxstranger, 2+Solo, Angst, Language, Prostitution

Notes: Not a clue where this came from... It's pretty good, not my best, not my worst. Hope ya like it.

The Shoes of Shinigami 

It's hard sometimes, hard to remember, hard to look at the ghost in the mirror of my memories. At night, I grip bed sheets and pillows while trying to beat back the demons of a past I would kill to forget. And I wish, goddamn, do I wish, I could make you understand the absolute weight of something like me on a person's soul, but I can't, 'cause you're all pure and innocent.

You don't think so? Try standing on a pile of rubble that used to be your home and stealing the rosary off a nun's dead body just so you don't forget the way her hair was spread out behind her like some fucking golden, angelic halo, all the while knowing it was completely your fault.

Yeah, baby, then remember how innocent you are compared to me.      

But this isn't why I started this little makeshift commentary. As I've gotten older, I keep forgetting the one person who was my God and savoir, took care of me better than anyone else ever could, the one who...

Who...

Who saved me from the black death that swept through the grubby little bodies of the local streetrats, who...who wouldn't let me die even when it was all I could do to atone for my fucking countless sins. 

But before all that, he fed me, shielded me, was my black-winged angel that was as much my guardian seraphim as Sister Helen was. He gave me an attitude, a reason, even gave me a name, all that the cost of everything he ever was and ever could be if fate hadn't been such a bitter old bitch.

There are things worse than death, ya know, things that even oblivion can't take from you. 

He sold all of his inner peace so I could live, all the shiny happiness that was in his eyes, he gave away for a few measly fuckin' dollars so I could eat!

Guilt? Hell yeah I feel guilt, just like I do for everything else, just like I do for still drawing in breath day after damn endless day. Nothing will change that, nothing can alter my feelings over why I feel this way, and all your pathetic cheap condolences fall on my dead ears. 

No offense, of course.

One of my most crystal images of him was where he was staring into some cracked mirror we had found in the dumpster, fixing his damp hair, damp from his dash into some restaurant's bathroom before getting the boot out back home to the streets. Fingers threaded through it, drawing the bangs down into his sparkling emerald eyes, while he pulled the back into a ponytail, tied off with a piece of cloth torn off from his shirt. 

His smile was forced, but I wouldn't realize it until later, couple years at least, when I could understand the look in his eyes better. He was a beautiful boy; really he was, even at not a day over thirteen. I remember fixing his shirt, my little hands finishing up the buttons on the torn and hole-filled piece of clothing, and smoothing the stolen vinyl pants over his legs.  He was a wet dream clad in nightmares and stains, the desire of many in the slummy shit-holes of L2, which is the only reason why we ate half the time.

I was only told that he went out to work...God, I was naive.

"I'll be home ina couple hours, kid," he whispered to me one day, one hand immersed in the oily chestnut of my hair and ruffling it back and forth. "Ya be good and wait 'ere for me, 'kay?"

He never waited for an answer, never bothered to sit around, and instead hit the streets and began walking several blocks down. He never wanted me to see, never wanted me to know just what...

He was a good man.

One night I followed him though, spying him from the shadowed tendrils of some forgotten alley, and watched as he leaned against the cool metal of some random lamppost. His hair was slightly mussed, helping me realize several years later that he had already had a few clients that evening. He didn't see me, didn't hear me, didn't have the slightest clue I was there, for if he had, I wouldn't have been left there a second longer. The halo of the artificial light, fake like everything else I had ever seen, bathed him in some buttery light, as if daytime had come again, just for him, like he was a planet in the middle of some fucked up, twisted solar system.

I watched him, smiling and proud 'cause damnit, he was working, he was working for me! Though...some part of me wondered just exactly what it was that he was doing, just standing there on that corner, licking his lips and running his right hand down his body at each car that drove by. I remember thinking...thinking...

Solo doesn't look like he's workin' too hard...so why's he 'lways tired when he comes home?

I was so stupid! 

Not stupid...just naive.

Same fucking thing, if you ask me, Heero.

Anyway, so I was going to head back, finding this to be a bit boring and there was a blanket waiting for me where he had left me, but just as I turned away, I saw red, a bright glaring red that washed the world in it's despising hatred. Turning back, I found it was only brake lights, as a car stopped beside Solo, and he had moved to lean over it. There was a moment of talking, random conversing I couldn't hear, before I saw him yank my hero half into the car and shove his tongue down his throat.

It was no kiss...it was a friggin' rape of his mouth.

It broke a second later, and Solo stumbled back a few steps, screaming and animated, alive for the first time in several hours. His cheeks were high and flushed with anger, his emerald eyes blazing, hair unbound and flying behind him. My avenging angel; my dream, my life.

He stopped in mid-rant, mid-word, as a fistful of rumpled dollars thrust itself out of the car window, waving it back and forth like those pocket-watches the hypnotist use, and even from the solitary universe of my alley, I could see Solo's eyes moving, watching it, mesmerized by it. I never saw a change in someone so fast, so complete, the utter death of a human spirit.

His palmers slammed shut, under lock and key, and his eyes looked away, down to the ground, caught between submissive and shame. It made me sick, sick to watch him shuffle to the door of that run down, rusted piece of shit car and slip inside, his face pale and porcelain, his hair so dark it was unnatural.

I didn't understand what happened until I crept home and dwelled on it all. Solo came home several hours later, sporting a black eye that matched his tresses, torn pants, and a bloody lower lip that was cracked into a smile so false, so hollow, I realized...realized...

He was dying for me, inside and out. 

He muttered something about being tired, so damn, bloody tired, and curled up on our makeshift bed in that alley to sleep. I moved to lay beside him, almost would've been spooning if we'd be older, and I could hear his whimpers echoing through my head endlessly, some relentless storm of pain visited onto my now wingless angel. My personal Jesus was crucifying himself everyday, in everyway for me...and I hated myself, loathed the very existence of me, 'cause... 

It's always my fault. Even then, I was the little bringer of death, and I destroyed all of him, every last fiber of him that might have been real and everlasting, I painted black with my brush and laughed while I did it. My little angel became my little martyr.

It was my fault though, Heero! He did it for me...it was all for me. Every breath he took, it was for me; every John he took to bed, it was for me. He told me, told me one night as he died...died in my fucking arms!

Don't tell me it wasn't until you've walked a mile in Shinigami's shoes.

The End


End file.
